After my mom's third divorce when I was fourteen, she would often wake up between three and four in the morning to drink coffee and write, much like I do now. She definitely wrote letters, but I suppose she also wrote just to get he thoughts out, and it's a shame that those stacks of yellow notepads are long gone, probably ripped apart and hurried in a landfill somewhere. Maybe that is a fitting metaphor for her state of being back then. Sometimes I would wake up and sit with her, which I am sure she enjoyed; but what she really wanted was to sit alone with her thoughts in silence. Early morning is the only time we often have to be awake in quiet before the chaotic clanging of the day overtakes our senses and drowns out the small noises we forget or are unable to hear. Sometimes, like this morning, I will lay awake in bed just listening to the sounds of my dogs rustling in their sleep, the binary crunch of the cable box, and the sound of early commuters zooming down H Street toward the 805. Still, what I enjoy listening to the most is the sound of Denise's breathing while she slumbers under the warm blankets. There is no sound more beautiful than my wife drifting between states of sleep, right next to me but off in some other universe, some other plane of consciousness that she will soon return from. That is the sound of peace. That is the feeling of comfort that most people wish they had. It is just one more reminder of how luck I am.